Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC raises Rs 789 cr from anchor investors ahead of IPO

Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC on Tuesday said it has collected Rs 789 crore from anchor investors ahead of its initial share sale that opens for public subscription on Wednesday. It was decided to allot 1,10,80,800 shares to anchor investors at Rs 712 apiece, valuing the aggregate transaction at Rs 788.95 crore, according to a circular uploaded on the BSE website.

ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund (MF), SBI MF, SBI Life Insurance Co Ltd, Axis MF, UTI MF BNP Paribas Arbitrage, Max Life Insurance Company and HSBC Global Investment Funds are among the anchor investors. The initial share-sale is entirely an offer for sale, wherein two promoters — Aditya Birla Capital and Sun Life (India) AMC Investments — will divest their stake in the asset management firm.

Also read: Smile Foundation brings 20,000 students back to school, helps reopen 87 schools across India

The IPO of up to 3.88 crore equity shares comprises an offer for sale of up to 28.51 lakh equity shares by Aditya Birla Capital and up to 3.6 crore equity shares by Sun Life AMC. The proposed sale of equity shares by Aditya Birla Capital and Sun Life India in the IPO will together constitute up to 13.50 per cent of the paid-up share capital of Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC. The issue, with a price band of Rs 695-712 a share, will open for subscription on September 29 and conclude on October 1.

At the upper end of the price band, the initial share sale is expected to fetch Rs 2,768.25 crore. Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd, the investment manager of Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, is a joint venture between Aditya Birla Group and Sun Life Financial Inc of Canada. Asset management firms like Nippon Life India Asset Management, HDFC AMC and UTI AMC are already listed on the stock exchanges.

Aditya Birla Sunlife MF, the fourth largest fund house, had an average asset under management of Rs 2.93 lakh crore as of the June quarter. At present, it manages 118 schemes. Since its inception in 1994, the fund house has established a geographically diversified pan-India distribution presence covering 284 locations spread over 27 states and six union territories. Half of the issue size has been reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), 35 per cent for retail investors and the remaining 15 per cent for non-institutional investors.

Investors can bid for a minimum of 20 equity shares and in multiples of 20 equity shares thereafter. Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, BofA Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India, Axis Capital, HDFC Bank, ICICI Securities, IIFL Securities, JM Financial, Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors, SBI Capital Markets and YES Securities (India) Limited are the merchant bankers to the issue. The asset management company, which had filed preliminary IPO papers with Sebi in April, obtained its clearance in August.

Earlier in June, Sebi had kept the proposed initial share-sale of Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC in “abeyance”. However, the regulator had not disclosed the reason for the same.